Labeling the city

The city has got a new label in Pocitos, so you do not forget where you are. A test label had come and gone sometime ago (somebody's living room must be full of giant plastic letters!). This one is made of something heavy and solid. Much harder to take away, except as a memory.




I would have said that such a monument to obviousness was doomed in our dry-humored, gray city. But fortunately I was wrong, which happens often according to my wife.
 
The giant label is a great hit. People queue for a group or family picture, and tourists flock to it day and night. Welcome, Label!

Malvin Beach

People in foreign countries talk about Generation Y, Generation X - the whole alphabet. We have just the Sand Dunes Generation in Malvin Beach. It is a project to stabilize sand movement with bushes and palm branches. It seems to work so far. The sand is still there.




The Dunes Generation plays soccer on the sand, same as we did so many years ago. Hard on the ankles but great fun.



Families go to the beach on weekends, when the weather is right.



It gets a bit crowded near Punta Gorda, and the life savers were in a labor conflict (not yet strike, we have many gradations. Fortunately nobody drowned.



FP4+ in Beutler, with the little Pentax ME getting some air time.

The dead whale

A dead sperm whale appeared Friday evening in the coast of Carrasco, at about the intersection of the Rambla and Bolivia avenue. The beast was about 16 m long and had buried in the sand during the last storm.




The Prefectura (Coast guard) men tried to seize it by the tail and move it around, without much success. Even submerged, it was way too heavy, and currents were strong. A lot of people had gathered around to watch the show.




This happened on Saturday. Later, heavy construction machinery arrived, entered into the water, and eventually the poor whale was moved to the beach, to rot in peace all Sunday while local government feverishly contracted transport to a burial site. This is how it looked 24 hours later, on Sunday afternoon.




Can you imagine the stench of a 20-ton long-dead animal?  I am glad that photos have no odor. Yes, that dark mass near the tail are intestines. The body swelled and broke under the pressure of methane from the formentation. I had to take a closer picture but frankly I am not proud of it. You don't really have to look.




Another view, this time of the huge head of the sperm whale. The newsmen said that it is the animal with the largest brain in our planet. 



Yesterday, the whale was finally loaded in a truck and transported for proper burial. Quite an operation from local government and the Coast Guard. It will take about a week for the beach to be clean again.

This incident made me think of Captain Ahab in his Pequod and his special white whale. Before the Panama canal, I believe that there were whalers stopping at Montevideo harbor. In any case, we do not see whalers anymore; our current fishing boats look friendlier.





Technical: Kiev 4M with various lenses (J-12 and -9, H-103). FP4+ in Beutler.